The Moz Blog

Pitching an SEO Client

(I'd like to see) a post on the work you put in to create the proposal and land the job. I guess much of it is re-used every time, but what is not? How much work are you willing to put in at a shot of landing a job? How much information do you give them up front? And what do you include in your proposal? Not specifics, but maybe an outline.

To answer honestly, we don't put a lot of work into making the pitch (unless you count the time writing the blog, participating in forums and speaking at conferences). We receive between 3-5 serious inquiries for business every week, and I refer 19 out of 20 to the recommended list. For that 5%, however, here's our typical process:

Step 1: Understand the Business ModelMy first goal when considering a new contract is to get a good understanding of a company's business - how they earn revenue, what their current sales look like, how they get leads through the web, etc. We always sign an NDA first, then typically spend an exploratory 15-45 minutes on the phone together. I need to know how their sales process operates online if I'm going to help, and there are plenty of times when this conversation will end with a referral, oftentimes because I'm not comfortable working with what essentially turns out to be an affiliate marketer, or because I think we won't be able to provide a high level of value.

Step 2: Give them My Honest OpinionEither during the exploratory phone call, or after I've spent some time investigating their site, their competition and the industry I'll share my take on a potential partnership. This is the start of what I'd call "the pitch" - I explain to them where I see opportunity, return on investment, weaknesses in the search results and tactics that other companies have failed to exploit. Oftentimes, I'll lay out a strategy or give specific ideas - ads to buy, places to get links, articles or blogs to write, etc. I find that the more I ideas I generate over the phone, the more excited the client is about the possibilities. It runs both ways, actually - if I'm pumped up about a project and see lots of room to improve and gain market share, I usually start running through ideas one after the other in a swell of passionate SEO-marketing-speak. It sounds corny, but I think that people get really engaged when they can tell you're excited about making them money.

The flip side of this is when my opinion runs counter to their hopes. Sometimes, even once we've progressed to this level of dialogue, I'll let the client know that I think they're flatlining. In some cases, I tell them they need to get some business strategy advice before they can make an online success, and in other cases I talk to them about starting from scratch - building a new site with new content foci and a new way of selling their products or services. Many times, these become our biggest clients (6 figures+).

Step 3: Hammer out a Rough ProposalWith almost every client who doesn't have a very specific need (like a day of on-site training or a block of ten consulting hours), I offer to send them an email with a list of tasks we'll perform, an outline of the timeframe for delivery and a cost schedule. It might look something like this:

On-Site Visit and Training (between delivery of site review & end of contract, schedules permitting)

Day 90 - $10,000

I send this to the client via email and they send me something back - either a full approval or modifications to make it fit with their needs/budget/timeframe.

Step 4: ReferencesBetween 1/4 and 1/3 of our new clients request references, either direct names and contact information of people they can speak to about our work, or just the list of companies we've done work for. This is one of the most frustrating parts of my job, because although we have a good number of clients who are happy to give referrals, more than 75% of our clients don't allow us to reveal their names publicly or let people know that we've done work for them. Fully half of these private few don't even allow us to mention them privately to potential clients under NDA. Grrrrrr.... I'm literally considering offering a 10-15% discount for clients who agree to have us publicize our work for them.

Step 5: Legal & PaymentLuckily, this is the part of the process I can distance myself from. Once the client and I have agreed to the contract's general terms, I hand it over to Gillian, who constructs the formal contract, works with the client's legal team to put the finishing touches in place and sets up payment systems. We don't have payment terms, per se, but our contracts are strict about ensuring that the payment must take place for work to continue, so we don't run into situations where we're working without payment.

If this all sounds too easy, that's because it really is. We are incredibly lucky to have a high profile and high demand for our services. Several years ago, we pitched contracts and RFPs just like any other firm and it was ugly. Competing on price, sweating over details, being bullied into taking a loss and walking away from a signed document with a queasy feeling was all too regular. It's one of the reasons we're taking steps now to insure we have additional streams of income outside the client services model - I never want to return to those dark days.

I hope this answers your question, anonymous reader, and provides some insight to the rest of our audience, too. I'd love to hear from you if you've worked with companies who run this process differently - better or worse.

28 Comments

At the tiny company where I work we charge for one-time homepage optimization and on-going monthly or quarterly optimization separately, which I think works pretty well though it's hard for me to draw a line between the two. The one-time homepage optimization is a great value (as all of our services are) and gives the small local businesses that employ us a great chance of improving their rankings and traffic. Ongoing optimization basically would mean providing ranking reports and doing ongoing research as far as link building and SEM is concerned.

I have to admit, however, that from time to time I get rather involved in a particular project and end up doing what would be considered "ongoing optmization" even if they didn't pay for it.

Excellent article, very insightful.
I am a little puzzled conerning your deliverables. I was expecting accessibly review, keyword research, directory submissions and link building to be in there somewhere. Where do they come in?
I am assuming this is a pitch for you to get an SEO job, which I could be wrong.

I read this post and it seams i have done things correctly Except the timeline. Right now i have a client that only wants to work with me with no contract (only one mont to see if we fit--meaning relationship wise). The problem with this is that they also requested a timeline.

Part of client's email says the following:

"I really want to get down some dates we can look at. I know you said it could take 4-6 months to complete the entire SEO.... but there must be some point during the process when we will see the benefits. For instance, how long before we see any new traffic at all? (even if just a few hits).So, if there is any way you can break down the 4-6 month process to provide more information as to traffic, I would REALLY appreciate it." Randfish, how to aswer an emial like this? It seams to me that they dont want to sign up for 6 months, but they want 6 months outline?! I'm not sure how to aswer this email. They are reluctant to sign-up for 6 months service, explaing that they are afraid of relationship not working (becuase they say they dont know me, even though i show my work and gave them refferences). They are only paying $800 a month (2 to 3/hour daily). Any hits on ow to handdle this will be helpfull. thx.

This is business, and prior relationships should not dictate the future of a contract. They should have done their research or checked out your reputation prior to this conversation.

I would suggest telling them the truth, which is that you will perform the work necessary to increase their search visibility. Stay away from offering any guarantee, because we (SEO Professionals) simply have no way of controlling the outcome. Try to re-direct them to what you have done already on other clients or reaffirm to them that you can offer a reassessment after a month to provide further insight to the success made so far.

This is definately the way to pitch business. After all, most businesses looking for marketing are looking to get real ideas but also a reality of what opportunities are in their reach and not far from it.

What SEO strategy do you employ to charge your rates? Are you using the kind of backlinking strategies taught by IM Guru's or are you more in-depth with code? I see SEO rates differ so dramatically and I'd like to know why. Are getting someone to number 1 google ranking for a keyword that has 500K+ sites competing with the top 5 having 20K+ backlinks to page and domain within 4 months? Can we get some clarity? What is the rest of the home based SEO community not doing? Thank You in advance for answering my question.

That was a fantastic summary. Thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge on the subject. I agree with you about you sharing your ideas and your excitement for their business and business model. I've just closed my first large account as an independent SEO. I believe that the CEO has chosen me aside from just my track record and past successes - he knows that I will treat his business and the recommendations I make as though his company it were my own.

I want to add one thing to your list - The value of Honesty. When I conduct an assessment, I often make recommendations against my best interest as an external consultant. As a result clients recognize my integrity and ethics, therefore open the door for me to new opportunities.

Sounds like a great model you have going Rand. I've been involved in search marketing sales/management for the past 6 1/2 years and whole-heartedly agree with your philosphy on the "honest opinion". Clients love relevant advice that they can take back to their cohorts. It not only establishes trust but reinstills confidence in your comprehension of search. Give some sound, legitimate 'freebies' and clients will more willingly open up the check book.
The fact that you can charge a premium for guidance and reporting is fantastic....keep that model and your company can be very profitable.

Thanks for another great post - I am still training myself to come back to this blog on a regular basis. I'm curious to get some insight on your thoughts on presenting ROI to the client. We're in a similar position where the demand is high, referrals are great, but attaining both higher dollar contracts and additional revenue streams need to be more of a priority. While the immediate demonstration of ROI would be in sales revenue over a given period of time, do you find that your company (or anyone who would wish to contribute) sets or advises on ROI objectives based on each situation? For example, a site selling very high dollar entreprise software, is probably not going to create immediate sales through their website - in that case, what type of ROI objectives would you consider? Thanks again for the post - much appreciated!

Great post... Thanks for sharing! Rand... most of what I see in your deliverables are reports and training... are you guys doing any actual on-page/off-page optimization for the client or just doing the analysis and making recommendations to the client so they have a plan to follow?

Great post, Rand. I especially like your lightweight get-to-the-point proposal style - something I try to approach with my proposals. Unfortunately, when you are a small player, and have less industry notoriety, the tendency is to put more into your proposal - to communicate the message that your (lack of) reputation could not.
And your comments about reputation building and "dark days" highlight an unfortunate fact: it's a two-tiered industry right now, with a few fortunate players getting them limelight and the luxury of 10x pricing.
BTW - "fortunate" does not mean undeserved :)

I talked with a guy the other day who's a senior manager for a major British recruitment company.
These guys spend many millions per year on SEO & SEM services.
Such is the competitive nature of the recruitment industry over here...

Since there's no mention of a fee, should I conclude that you don't charge prospects for any of the process involved in the pitch? I thought I was the last one in the business who didn't charge for a proposal.

Great post and great to learn there are others like yourselves who have gone through the ringer. What did you mean by the following? Can you share what other new sources of revenue (or business model) that you are pursuing?

It's one of the reasons we're taking steps now to insure we have additional streams of income outside the client services model - I never want to return to those dark days.